On May 25, Russia with plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, two months after President Vladimir Putin Russia would station such weapons in Belarus.
Also on May 25, exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya condemned the nuclear weapons agreement between Minsk and Moscow.
The European Union recognizes Tsikhanouskaya as the country’s rightful leader, having rejected incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko’s victory in Belarus’ 2020 elections.
Tsikhanouskaya in a video statement posted on Twitter that the nuclear weapons agreement with Russia violates Belarus’ constitution and its international obligations:
That is true.
Russia’s transfer of nuclear weapons to Belarus explicitly violates the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Belarus also pledged to observe its non-nuclear status by signing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In addition, Belarus’ 1994 constitution prohibits deploying nuclear weapons on its territory.
In 2022, the Lukashenko regime removed nuclear-free status from Belarus' supreme law. However, neither the Belarusian opposition nor the West recognized that change as legal.
According to the agreement between Moscow and Minsk, Russian will be stored on the territory of Belarus.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who accused “the collective West” of “essentially waging an undeclared war” against Russia and Belarus, said that , which can carry nuclear warheads, had been handed over to the Belarusian armed forces. He also said some Su-25 jets had been converted for possible nuclear weapons use, Reuters reported.
Belarus gained in December 1991, following the signing of the , which effectively dissolved the Soviet Union.
In February 1993, Minsk acceded to the (NPT), thereby agreeing never to acquire nuclear weapons. By November 1996, Belarus had transferred all nuclear weapons on its territory to Russia.
According to the , a Washington-based think-tank, “[n]o nuclear forces have been stationed in Belarus since that time.”
Under the , non-nuclear-weapon states agree never to acquire nuclear weapons. However, the treaty says nothing about deployment of nuclear weapons by a nuclear power on the territory of a non-nuclear country.
Several NPT signatories — Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey — that loophole. As of 2005, American nuclear bombs were in those countries under NATO’s nuclear sharing program.
Members of the Non-Aligned Movement, as well as some in Europe, have argued that the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in NPT signatory countries violates Articles I and II of the treaty, which “non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty … to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons.”
Moscow and Minsk claim that deploying Russian nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus the NPT since Moscow it will retain control over the missiles.
However, Russia has accused the United States of violating the NPT in connection of such munitions in European countries.
Russian Foreign Minister on April 22, 2015:
On May 28, Lukashenko said that Russia would provide that joins the “union state” which Russia and Belarus formed in 1999, citing Kazakhstan as another potential partner.
However, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev rejected Lukashenko’s offer the following day, : “[W]e don’t need [nuclear weapons], since we have joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty."
On December 5, 1994, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan signed three identical , under which three nuclear powers — the U.S., United Kingdom and Russia — in exchange for their accession to the NPT and .
The key condition for the security guarantees given to Belarus was its “to eliminate all nuclear weapons from its territory.” The transfer of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus explicitly violates this obligation, even if these weapons will be under Russian control.
On May 26, , the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, the tactical nuclear weapons agreement between Russia and Belarus contradicts the Budapest Memorandum:
Belarus adopted its first as a sovereign independent nation in 1994. It : “The Republic of Belarus aims to make its territory a nuclear-free zone and the state neutral.”
On February 27, 2022, the Lukashenko regime the constitution after a referendum, the clause on the country’s non-nuclear status.
The the referendum, for which the Belarusian opposition was not allowed to campaign, was held “in a context of widespread human rights violations and its brutal repression against all segments of the Belarusian society.”